by Catherine King
It was still dark when I woke up on July 1. Instantly rushing, I knew with conviction that it was a red letter day -- the day the vision came to me of my farthest-reaching work yet! Somehow, while I'd been sleeping, my subconscious got carried away with the inspirational subject of "Democracy in America."
Before, the idea of the exhibition was just kind of a joke to me. But after seeing the cheap and negative entries, my subconcious, it seems, wanted to provide the balance that the organizers claimed they were seeking. I hadn't expected to get involved in the exhibition this way, but there I was, busy designing and building America the Beautiful in my sleep. America the Beautiful -- that was the name of my installation for "Democracy in America." It would be a diorama inside of a room-sized tableau.
Lying there in the blackness I could see it:
You look into a studio apartment with one wall removed for viewing. On the wall facing you, the tiny apartment has a window onto the surrounding city. This is the diorama -- a three-dimensional street scene behind the window glass.
The street has the look and feel of a funky neighborhood in a Southwestern city. On the opposite side of the street is a graceless stripmall. There are storefronts for a charter high school, with an inspirational mural across the front, a mom-and-pop computer repair shop, a little mail store/copy shop, and a Sally's Beauty Supply.
The figures of the people walking past the window, or lingering on the sidewalk, will be about the size of those that Jon Haddock and his friends made for 98-107, but modelled far better. Also on the sidewalk are newspaper dispensers for New Times, PennySaver, and Auto Trader. A Mexican immigrant wheels by with his shiny white ice cream cart. In the street, Fed Ex and UPS trucks rush by each other in passing lanes.
Seated cross-legged on the floor of the studio-sized tableau room, a life-size woman works from the light of the window. She is American Woman and she is bright red -- on account of her blood, her passion. It has nothing to do with skin color.
American Woman is in the middle of working on some complex, Do-It-Yourself project. Spread around her on the floor are a cell phone, note pads, city maps, phone books and Idiots-Guides-To-Many-Things. One can see that this woman is truly connected to the world outside her humble abode.
The tiny apartment is uniquely, but cheaply decorated. It's fascinating, really. American Woman has created a beautiful environment from readily available materials. She would never save and wait forever to spend a lot of money on fancy digs. Life is to be grasped right now. Today is what matters.
American Woman is a freelance artist, stylist, designer. She sits there designing her business card. Let's see . . . Graphic Artist, no, Graphic Designer, no, Graphic Stylist, no, Style Consultant, no, Design Consultant, yes, that's it! This American Woman is preparing to take her talent outside and drum up some work while she improves the environment. When she looks out her window, she can imagine her handiwork all over her neighborhood -- posters, logos, signs, newspaper covers. Signs of dynamic, ongoing progress. America the Beautiful -- she helps make it so.
I was so excited, it was all I could do to keep from waking up Jerome to describe it. Instead, I stumbled in the dark to the computer and began inputting my vision . . .
The installation represents my personal view of what Democracy can mean to an American Woman. First of all, if the red-blooded American Woman ever took anything about her United States citizenship for granted, she corrected her attitude abruptly on the morning of September 11th, 2001. She knows and appreciates that this is the place for a man or woman to invent, or reinvent, themselves, as she is doing.
This is the place to be your own boss, as she is doing. This is the place to become a self-proclaimed Stylist and set up your tent. This is the land of the Self-Made, Self-Taught, Do-It-Yourselfer. Why, look at the businesses out on the street -- some of them were nonexistent several years ago, but they grew out of the need and vitality of an open society.
It particularly pisses American Woman off to hear smug college professors, from their cushy perches, bitch and moan about how tough things are here in the U. S. A.
And those whiney punks who made the crappy art for "Democracy in America" don't have to tell her how things aren't perfect or fair out there. Why do you think she lives in a cheap studio apartment? Yes, women still make 60 to 70 cents on the dollar to men right here right now, depending on their color.
The red-blooded American Woman knows that nobody on our side is really the enemy. The terrorists want to kill all of us non-Muslims, from the most innocent baby to the biggest asshole out there. American Woman loves every moment of her self-styled freedom, and even if plenty of her fellow Americans are hard to love, she never mistakes the assholes for the principles.
On July 1, by the time the sun had risen and Jerome woke up, I was completely transfixed by my New Idea. I came down a little when he explained to me that the subject of the exhibition was actually, or was supposed to be, the democratic process in America. Then we talked for a long time about how the show was really ill-defined and ill-conceived. Its premise was disingenuous because it was actually being set up as an anti-Bush exhibition, nothing else.
But maybe the organizers would be expanding the approach of the show, to provide more balance. From the article (page 29):
Zeitlin . . . insists the alternative voices are out there and says she's on the hunt for them personally. She's been looking for pro-Bush or anti-Kerry art in New York and Chicago (although she admits that she's yet to find any). Other ASU curators, she says, are still searching as well.
There was hope that Spiak would accept my proposal for the installation! He knew I could make a world-class tableau, because he saw our domestic-violence store-window piece, The Last Time. I was soaring again. All morning long, running around town, I kept building America the Beautiful in my mind.
By this time, America the Beautiful was so real to me. I was proud of it, but also humbled, feeling like the piece might be bigger than me, and it would be inspiring to people and provide much-needed optimism and balance. My enthusiasm, and the shimmering clarity of America the Beautiful, seemed to grow with the sun that day as it rose higher and higher.
Back at home that afternoon, I went on and on to Jerome about America the Beautiful and American Woman as if they were real. They wanted to be born so badly. But after a while, I had to admit I was kidding myself if I thought there was any way the installation would ever be made.
There would never be time, for one thing. When the other artists, whose work now needs balancing, were notified and invited -- King and du Bois weren't. Why weren't we?
Spiak has known about our pro-American politics since our posting about Mark Rubin-Toles and Jon Haddock over a year ago. (Not pro-Bush; pro-American.) Actually, the connection with Haddock goes back further, to our visit to his show-in-a-condo, when he had to come up on us to explain Haddock's 9-11 / jumping / suicide piece. (He probably thought we were collectors, not critics.)
And he certainly knew how we felt when we stood up and silently walked out of Haddock's slide lecture when he showed an image of cartoon people at the smoking WTC windows, waiting to jump. We went home and wrote about it on the blog, and started a series of comments -- from John Spiak, not Haddock! It's a long story you can read here, but the point is that Spiak has known our political feelings for a long time. (The other point is that Spiak has been plugging Haddock since day one. No pun intended.)
It felt so bitterly Undemocratic! We were definitely excluded because of our political differences and now they dishonestly claim that they so want balance! Why, Marilyn Zeitlin's running all over the U. S. A. looking for it, when I think she knows goddamn well she can find plenty of it right here in her own backyard.
By the time the sun sank that day, my spirit had come crashing down outside the shitty stable of incestuous legitimization that is contemporary art in this valley. They can't find balance? Well, that's what happens when you only invite people who agree with you.
I'll never get to make America the Beautiful. But I can write about it. For balance.